reverse engineering – recent advances and applications - OpenLibra

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Reverse Engineering – Recent Advances and Applications
3.3 Company B
Company B is one of three major national suppliers of hour meters for manufacturers of
agricultural machinery and parts. The hour meter (a special timer) is an electricalmechanical
device for controlling the length of engagement sessions on machines,
equipment and stationary engines.
Among its major applications we find: tractors and general agricultural machinery, forklifts,
marine engines, industrial machines and similar mechanisms. This product was chosen for
being one of the higher revenue generators for the company, but lately its competitive edge
in the market has been threatened by competition from suppliers with more technologically
advanced products; as a result, the company is compelled to redesign its product, focusing
on reducing its production cost in order to at least maintain its position in the market.
The research followed the steps of the integration model, proposed by Souza (2007), cited in
Table 1, presented below.
3.3.1 Identify opportunity
As for the redesign through Reverse Engineering, an hour meter has been chosen as a
reference product from a European company, which has commercial dealings in Brazil. This
was a joint decision of the production department and the marketing department of the
company being studied. The chosen product was considered as a reference for having such
high sales in this market.
The technique of redesign, according to Otto and Wood (1998) was adaptive, in view of the
need for new subsystems for the redesign of the hour meter to be produced by the company,
object of study.
The acquisition of the reference product was possible thanks to the financial support offered
by Minas Gerais Research Support Foundation (FAPEMIG), with the announcement "Young
Doctors Program", process EDT-538/07, which provided a resource for the research. It is
worth notice that the product, result of his research, didn´t break any patent ou commercial
property, once que solutions for the generated subsystems were different from those
observed on the reference product.
3.3.2 Collecting and preparing the initial information
This phase is the first one with involved technical characteristics. It has been carried out an
initial survey of the marked on measuring instrument for machine panels, agricultural
equipment and stationary engines.
All information has been brought together, which could contribute for the integration of
reverse engineering with DFMA and the RP: elaboration of the product structures
(definition of sets and their components), mapping and cronoanalysis of the hour meter
assembling process, definition of standard time for each step of the assembling process and
the product assembling raising costs.
A series of non structured interviews has been carried out with the mounting employees to
identify their major difficulties on the hour meter assembling process. Table 4 shows some
of the identified difficulties.